On Alfombras and Aprovecharing...

I have a number of blogs entries to catch up on...and we`ve been far too balls to the wall for me to take the time. But now I`m in Cusco on some time off, so here goes with a massive catch up.

I haven`t been that stressed since college. Those of you who were there with me remember the high level of adrenaline pumping around 11pm..the sick feeling that your night was just getting started, and the giddy dread induced by trying stock of what you needed to do. We were trying to get grades done, comments written, midterm feedback sessions completed, and then ourselves and the girls packed and out the door for a 7 day backpacking trip over a 14,000 foot pass. And then we had a discipline incident, a dislocated finger, and two projectile vomiters to contend with. Had the girls been that loaded down, we would have slowed down, taken a breath. But because it was teachers, and especially me, the masochist in me was winning out - pushing myself to suck it up and keep working. There`s some dogged martyrdom that happens with TTS teachers - strong women, compensating for something as we push ourselves through self-sacrificing.

We woke up on Friday morning with coffee breath and groggy eyes. My Spanish class was studying el preterito...and I realized it was Good Friday. Kicking myself, I had the girls drop their books, and head out the door. One block down from our hostel the street was blocked off and buzzing...and dozens of people were ont heir hands and knees with chalk and brilliantly colored sawdust making giant alfombras - huge colorful murals that span the street, pictures of Jesus on the cross, grapes, wheat, a cup filled with wine. Their spontaneous assignment was to learn the history of Good Friday and the alfombras and they giddily fanned out, in the somewhat sheepish and excited TTS style.

Bouncing between groups, I happened back upon one of my students barely able to speak. A family had invited the girls to help them make the alfombra with them.

In the next ten minutes, we had cancelled classes and pushed our backpacking trip back a day. Each of us breathed easier. When the decision was made it was so obvious what had needed to happen. The girls spent four hours pouring little bits of sawdust on the road, chatting with this family, laughing hysterically to each other that they might see photos of alfombras in their history textbook - but instead, here they were...making them.

This is education. Every time we take ourselves too seriously, an opportunity like this comes and nips me gently, reminds me that this is why we`re here.

Five hours later, a procession came through, trampling the alfombras. Our painstakingly crafted mural was stomped and blended and blurred by the feet of those carrying the weight of saints and Christ figures on their shoulders. It was momentary, our experience. For what else can we be living, but in this moment? For what else can we seize, but what is right now, around us?

In Spanish, there is a word "aprovechar". We have no such word in the English language - but it roughly means "to take advantage of" or "to seize an opportunity". Education is all around us, so long as we are out of the classroom and open enough to aprovechar it.